


Hot Streak

by SirAranIsWriting



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Drinking, Gambling, Impulse Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22140706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirAranIsWriting/pseuds/SirAranIsWriting
Summary: (Pre FE9) After leaving the Begnion military, Makalov seeks to raise enough money to pay back his debts. He just needs a little extra cushion of cash before he can start working off his dues...(Written for a friend as part of Nagamas 2019. The prompt was "makalov getting into shenanigans before marcia finds him in por." As one of the few actual Makalov fans, I just had to)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Hot Streak

Makalov weighed the small pouch of coins in his hand, before looking back up across the bright lights of the gambling hall. There were cheers of winners, the clacking of wheels. A troupe of minstrels on the center stage played exciting music, and servers wandered about with delicious looking drink orders. Truly, it was a carnival of the senses.

“Careful, Makalov, this is what got you in this mess in the first place,” he muttered to himself. Since finding that debt notice nailed to his door, he knew more would keep coming until he could find some way to pay it back. And he couldn't go through that humiliating ordeal in front of the knights. Not in front of Lady Sigrun. Not in front of his sister.

“Just need a decent cushion, then I can start working off the debt like normal,” he reminded himself, exchanging his coins for ten small chips, and approaching the roulette tables. He watched the wheels for a few spins, trying to see any pattern or fault with it. Once an opening was made in one of the tables, he stepped forward.

“Alright, Makalov, just remember your bad luck...” he said below his breath, before placing two chips on the table. “Just bet small...” He pushed those coins to bet on red. No numbers, just red.

The wheel clicked and clacked as it spun, before coming to a slow crawl... “23 red,” called out the hall employee, and the winnings were dealt out.

Makalov smiled as he held up his new chips. Now he was up two from where he started. Collecting those, and the chips he initially bet with, he placed them down for the next spin. “Red again.”

And so the wheel spun several times. Many times, Makalov's heart jumped into his throat, before relief allowed him to melt and relax into the side of the table. All the while, he continued to bet “small,” always sticking to just picking the colour, never the number.

“13 black,” called out the hall employee.

Makalov cackled and cheered with delight, reaching over the table to start scooping up his winnings. “Fourteen in a row...!” he gasped, unable to believe his luck; in just one night, he had turned two chips into _thirty_ -two _thousand_. If he did just that, one more time, he'd get enough to pay off his debt. All of it! In one swoop--

Quickly, Makalov started pulling his chips not just towards himself, but off the table entirely. No, no, that was _exactly_ the sort of thinking that landed him in this mess in the first place. He could hear Marcia shrieking in his ear, see the soft but disappointed shake of Sigrun's head. Time to pack it in before anyone got hurt!

“Well, that was fun! Boy, what a night, think it's time for this good old boy to hit the hay,” Makalov quickly rambled, gathering up his chips in his purse, now full to bursting, even with the larger denominations.

“Oh, come, sir, you can't leave now! You're on a hot streak!” insisted the hall employee.

“No ho, no, I'm dreadfully thirsty,” Makalov “explained” with shifty eyes, “I have a particular drink order, and I certainly can't leave all my chips to go get it. But I shall lift my glass to you all, praising your good company, and wishing you all the greatest of--”

* * *

_LIFE SUCKS! SO LET'S DANCE!_

_LIFE SUCKS! SO LET'S DANCE!_

_YEAAAAH, MAYBE IF WE HAVE SOME FUN_

_WE WON'T FEEL SO BAD!_

Makalov interrupted his own warbling to grab the trumpet out of one of the minstrels's hands, throwing his still half full glass aside with a wet crash to play quite loudly and enthusiastically. And quite well, too, for someone three sheets to the wind and red in the nose.

Soon the trumpet was tossed aside, and so was Makalov, throwing himself off the stage and towards the crowd. “WHOO!”

_KRRSSH!_

* * *

“...300 for the drinks, 2000 for the tables, 8000 for the distress caused to the band,” the head of the gambling hall muttered, counting up the damages Makalov's bender had done to the establishment, while Makalov had buried his head in his hands, not just as part of nursing his hangover.

“All told, you owe us 32,500 gold.”

A weak, shaky smile spread on Makalov's lips. At least he remembered to cash out _first_ before his inadvertent, drunken rampage forfeited it all. So he had reset himself back to square one. He still made more than 200 coins in profit from where he started.

He'd just need another 328 nights just like tonight to pay off all his outstanding debts.

And a couple more gambling halls; he certainly wasn't going to be allowed back in _this one_ in his lifetime.

“Fair's fair,” Makalov whimpered, as he started to pile up his payment for the boss man. “Well, time to find another way to turn a hundred coins into a thousand, quickly...”

“...You're one of the knights, aren't you?” the boss man asked, looking Makalov over.

“H-Huh? Oh, um... Yes? Erm, formerly, admittedly. I, uh...retired? Retired.”

“...Uh-huh. Well, if you want to live out your, ahem, golden years in comfort, we do have a few tables still opened to wild drunks like you.”

“Sir, I must defend my honour and insist I was a _splendid_ drunk.”

“Of course. Follow me, Sir Former Knight.”

The boss man walked with Makalov through the back room of the gambling hall, and down a flight of stairs to a cellar level. Instead of wine barrels or other stored goods, the cellar was made empty and wide open to make room for a large cage in the middle of it. Inside the cage were two men, engaging in a barefisted brawl. One was a Beorc with a bushy brown beard, the other was a Laguz with spiky red hair. Both of them exceptionally well built.

So of course Makalov winced when a punch from the Laguz sent the Beorc flying across the ring, into the cage, landing with a dull thud, drowned out over the roar of the excitable, rough looking crowd.

“The fighting pits aren't usually something we like to advertise,” the boss explained, “but you can make decent money betting on these things. And even more money winning them, Sir Former Knight of Begnion.”

“Mmhm, mmhmm,” Makalov hummed, stroking his chin, nodding his head. “Hmm.” He wagged his finger as though in understanding, before looking up towards the boss. “Alternately...?”

* * *

Makalov sighed, once again bouncing his small coin purse in his hand, before looking up and over the dingy mercenary campsite. Apparently, the Beorc who got laid out back at the fighting pit belonged to a band of local mercenaries, and his turn as a gladiator left his “spot” open on the team.

Well, it was dirty work, but less expectations of decency and pride than the knights, Makalov thought, wandering through the camp.

“Hey, freckles!” a rough voice called out.

Makalov stopped and looked about; it was a large camp, noises coming from everywhere, maybe he was inadvertently eavesdropping on something. As he whipped himself around, he finally spotted a group of three men sitting around a barrel with a wooden plank resting on top of it like a makeshift table. All three of them looking at him. He pointed to himself and lifted his eyebrows.

“Yeah, you. You're the new guy, yeah?” the rough sounding man asked.

“Erm, yes. Just arrived. Spent, um, spent a few nights traveling from the city to get here,” he explained. “Sorry, I just, those aren't usually what people use to call out to me in a crowd,” he said, bouncing his hand in his pink, frizzy hair.

“Heh heh, I'll bet. You ever play cards, new guy?”

“Certainly,” Makalov answered immediately, before clicking his tongue and wincing, realizing he just compelled himself to join them by speaking up.

“Well then, how about sitting in with us for a round? We could use a fourth.”

Yup, there it was. Makalov sighed, and took the empty stool and plomped down around the barrel, taking out a few coins from his money purse. “This isn't some hazing ritual to dunk on the new guy, is it?” he had to ask.

The other three men at the table laughed, the lead one shaking his head. “Fresh meat like you, probably pretty desperate to join up with us. Definitely not the kind to have a lot of spending money to throw around. What's the point in cleaning you out of what little you got?”

“Fair enough. So, who's dealing?”

And so Makalov sat in with the mercenary for a few hands of cards. A few hands turned to several, and several hands turned into a proper, tournament style game. Raises were called, pots fluxuated and expanded, and purses got lighter and lighter.

And all the while, Makalov was doing pretty well for himself. Soon, he and the rough sounding mercenary were the holders of the majority of the pot, and it was between them on one final hand to take it all home.

Makalov was sweating as the face cards landed on the table. The stakes were called. He and his new “friend” showed their hand.

“Three of a kind,” the mercenary boasted with a grin, which quickly faultered when he saw Makalov's hand.

“A flu—A flush!” Makalov gasped, before cheering, throwing his cards to the makeshift table and quickly scooping up the pot. “Ha ha! I'm not so unlucky after all!”

“You clever dick,” the mercenary grumbled through a teeth bearing smirk. “You had that hand before the last card was revealed!”

“Well, don't really have much of a poker face,” Makalov explained, “so might as well lean into the flop sweats!” He grinned as he started counting up his winnings. With the money he brought with him to the camp, he was now sitting on 500 coins. Not bad for his first day on the job!

“Come on, one more hand!” the mercenary insisted.

Makalov laughed and gently tapped the table. “My friend, I've nearly cleaned you out! I couldn't possibly take away what you have left, leave you with nothing for rations for the next few days! I'll tell you what, though: tonight, I'll buy us all a round, some extra nice rations for the table! Maybe they'll have some decent mead to go with--”

* * *

_WELL I KNOW THAT I'M GONNA GO SCREWING UP IN THE END!_

_BUT THAT'S OKAY!_

_'CAUSE I'M YOUR AVERAGE MAN!_

With his arms thrown around the shoulders of two other mercenaries, Makalov drunkenly screamed out his song while kicking atop one of the dining hall tables, sending plates and cups flying, stonework crashing on the floor.

“WHOO!”

_KRRSSSH!_

* * *

“...100 to replace the beer supply,” the mercenary captain growled through clenched teeth as he tallied up the damages, “one week's pay for the fruit supply crates kicked over, one week's pay for the grain supply, two weeks pay for that drunken brawl...”

Makalov planted his forehead on the captain's desk. He weighed his coin purse in his hand, a purse that was about to get substantially lighter. He let out a deep, exhausted sigh.

This was gonna take a while...

**Author's Note:**

> Nagamas is a Fire Emblem fandom gift exchange done through Tumblr; every Christmas since its start in 2013 (and once for the summer of 2014), fans submit prompts, likes, and dislikes to the main Nagamas blog, which you can find, here: nagamas.tumblr.com  
> Also, were the songs Makalov was singing brutally anachronistic? Absolutely. But in a modern setting, they would be very much Makalov songs. Ska would just be the right genre for him.


End file.
